I still remember the time we demanded L4D2 be a DLC for L4D.

Well, it turns out that Valve instead now intends to absorb the first game entirely into the new "upgraded" version.
They have already done this partially by porting No Mercy along with the original survivors. But now they intend to port the rest of the L4D campaigns to the second version.

Incidentally, an ambitious team, which I myself have joined, is working hard on porting the L4D2 campaigns to L4D.
We have recently released a commentary playthrough of The Parish campaign, check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8tnPtyDU-s

I vaguely remember a comment saying this was impossible...
But then again, many claimed the same about scavenge mode.

I might be a *little* late with this but I thought I'd post my thoughts on the matter anyway.

As we found out and as some have indeed suspected, the new Left 4 Dead DLC dubbed "The Sacrifice" will not be exclusive to Left 4 Dead. Instad, The Sacrifice will be available to Left 4 Dead 2 players as well, playable as the original L4D survivors.
The trailer of the DLC (Watch it here: http://steamoss.com/steamstore/video/550/5952) might have gotten some of you excited, seeing the L4D survivors with katanas and glocks fighting jockeys and L4D2 tanks, but I have to let you down; that is all for L4D2 ONLY.

What Left 4 Dead will (probably) get, is a quick and dirty port of the camaign that was probably intended for L4D2 all along. Nothing shows this better than the fact that the trailer for the DLC is in the Left 4 Dead 2 section, when it's supposed to be L4D DLC which is also for L4D2.

Instead, The Sacrifice is L4D2 DLC, from which a weak thin little slice is also thrown at the L4D players like a bit of skin thrown at an annoying mutt they will put to sleep soon anyway.

On the bright side, Valve is making an improved "redux" version of No Mercy! Awesome, right?
I can't wait to go on Left 4 Dead to try- oh, it's for Left 4 Dead 2.
That's right, to add insult to injury, they even ported the No Mercy campaign from the first game, along with the L4D survivors.

So now the problem is not that this DLC simply doesn't add anything unique to Left 4 Dead to keep it alive, but instead takes two away, the ability to play No Mercy, and the ability to play as the L4D cast. All under the pretense of supporting the first game.

And don't get me wrong, I am more than happy that at least something is ACTUALLY coming out for Left 4 Dead, but the fact that they're keeping up this malpractice, even if only with Left 4 Dead, is beyond infuriating.

P.s.: If you haven't seen it already, I've made a Hitler rant on the matter which you can watch here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX4hNIVl0pY if you're interested.

Left 4 Dead DLC Update:

Valve has thrown us a bone and mentioned Left 4 Dead in the release of the April 22nd L4D2 dlc The Passing.

The new dlc just released for Left 4 Dead 2 features a 3-part campaign where the sequel’s characters cross paths with the survivors of the first Left 4 Dead. This was something that many fans feared was the death nail for any hope of further L4D dlc, especially since it was revealed after it released that the original character Bill is killed off. Apparently Valve plans to release both a unique original Left 4 Dead dlc campaign and an online comic book intending to show the events that lead up to The Passing. So there is the first mention of specifics for the long awaited Left 4 Dead dlc - a new campaign that explains the dlc just released for Left 4 Dead 2.

You can expect this L4D dlc “sometime” after the release of The Passing for L4D2, according to the Steam blog. So I’ll keep my ears open for when that will be and what exactly it may contain.

Group News:

Not really a hotbed of group activity to report since there hasn’t been any dlc, or reason to discontinue the boycott for most members. We’ve contracted in size 10% since our peak membership in March, a trend I’d point to Left 4 Dead 2’s constant sale status and Valve’s success in pretty much abandoning the L4D community. I don’t begrudge anybody buying the sequel if its 20 dollars or less, which is what many boycotters felt would be a fair price for it - but for myself and for those who remain in the group the natural depreciation for the game’s price isn’t at all a carrot from Valve to make amends with a scorned community, and I don’t plan on buying it just because it’s cheaper 7 months later.

Opinion:

As a PC gamer using steam, constantly seeing Left 4 Dead 2 ads the past 6 months is getting awfully tiring. I looked up some game sale stats, and Left 4 Dead 2 has woefully underperformed in the PC market ever since it released. Valve has used XBOX reviews and sales data exclusively when pushing L4D2 marketing, claiming in February they were approaching 3 million units sold. At the moment in May, according to gamerankings and vgchartz, L4D2 on XBOX is at 2.65mil units sold and still 100,000 units shy of original Left 4 Dead sales (remember Valve claiming preorders for L4D2 were 4x higher and predicted 4x the game sales in total?) For comparison, this puts Left 4 Dead 2 five million units shy of the success of Call of Duty 4 or GTA IV. My point here is that Left 4 Dead 2 is a marginally successful game, mostly confined to the XBOX market, and it calls into question Valve’s objectivity when they’re permanently plastering their weakly selling title on Steam homepages for more than 6 months. Considering the new Steam is more integrated and cumbersome than ever, more people are going to want some fairness in their reviews and advertising methods if we’re all locked into using the program.

Regarding L4D dlc, It’s my opinion that by now, with practically nobody playing Left 4 Dead anymore, the dlc will be suspended or it will be woefully lacking, being crafted to complete the canon in order to offer some future trilogy or combo pack, rather than as an authentic campaign intended to be played by the original Left 4 Dead gamers.

Thoughts?

If you've been playing portal recently, you surely know about the mysterious updates the game has been getting lately. All has been revealed with the announcement of Portal 2, Valve's to-be-released 2010 title.

I'm sure that many of you have lost faith in Valve prior to the announcement of L4D2, saying they took a corrupt and greedy path.
I always thought Valve's next game release after L4D2 would confirm what kind of direction they are taking with their games. For those of you who share my opinion, here's a ray of hope.

On the Portal 2 announcement page(http://steamoss.com/steamstore/news/3559/), you can find some letters underlined. Apparently if you read those letters in order they spell out a password wich can be used to access exclusive content somewhere. There have also been lots of mysterious clues placed into Portal recently:
http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/2010_Portal_updates
Doug Lombardi stated that the difference between Portal and Portal 2 will be as large as the difference between Half-Life and Half-Life 2. It's rumoured to have co-op and many new game elements of course, and what is in my opinion the most important in a sequel; it continues the previous game's story. I'd say THAT is a lot more Valve-like.

I won't go into details surrounding Portal 2, but I want to say that the fact that Valve is doing these fun things and whatnot is a sign of the old Valve still being there, along with the whole news of a sequel that is more up to the Valve standard.

Note that Valve has teams for each of their franchises. So while the L4D(2) team may have lost their way trying to sweep the first game under the rug, the Portal and hopefully all the other teams could still be the good old Valve everyone loves. The corruption may spread from one team to another though, but it may also be eliminated. I think we can all hope for the latter.

Please remember that this announcement is mainly for our members who are concerned about the direction Valve has taken. I think this and the upcoming L4D DLC is what will decide if Valve has indeed "become EA", or if there's still hope for them.

I hope for the best for all of you concerned fans in 2010.

A sprig of news on the dlc tree. Original article here:


http://kotaku.com/5469905/left-4-dead-2s-the-passing-coming-mar%20ch-followed-by-comic-more-l4d-dlc


The first bit of DLC for L4D2 titled 'The Passing' is slated to be coming out some time in March. This is the DLC that is going to have the original Left 4 Dead's Zoey Bill Francis and Louis, appear as NPC's apparently to help the new survivors beat a chapter of the campaign. So to be clear, the original survivors don't seem to be playable characters in this DLC.

Now, mentioned is also planned DLC for Left 4 Dead the original. This one's for us! More news for it will come out "about a month or so" after the sequel DLC is released, but it's supposed to be an original-game-only campaign that shows how the survivors get to Lousiana.


I saw Spykedude saw this article too, and I'll second what he said about the first game being all but killed by now (or in a few months when we finally get it). It's been a pretty dry run ever since L4D2 has been released, hard to compete online with little unique content. I don't know that L4D dlc can revive much of the online play for the original considering it's been months and months still until we even get a release date, but I'm surprised something may actually be coming out, and potentially in April some time we'll finally see that elusive L4D dlc.

That said If it does come out, I hope some servers are up to handle the original L4D play. I'll be pleasantly surprised if it's substantive or good, and unpleasantly unsurprised if they release the sequel DLC and declare that there's no interest for the first and instead release it exclusively for the sequel. But we'll see.


More updates as they come.